Were the whales used in free willy real?

Yes! Whales are large aquatic mammals of the order cetacea. Though whaling (or whale hunting) nearly drove them to extinction, the International Moratorium on Commercial Whaling has protected them, and now their numbers are slowly coming back. There are two orders of whale, Balinidae, or baleen whales, and Ocedonte, or toothed whales. Though both orders are carnivores, they feed quite differently. Baleen whales filter krill, a small crustacean, from the water with large plates of a horny substance called baleen. The blue whale is a well known member of this family. Toothed whales eat mostly squid, and the sperm whale is probably the best known example.